Wojtek,
Note Archer IS like what you describe in the mayor of Baltimore. This is because the People is dead in Detroit too, for now. We have neo-liberal revanchism.
On stats, I don't have comprehensive , only anecdotal real property value figures, but I believe the reports that they have gone up overall. And as someone pointed out to me on objective criteria:
The bondrating criteria include factors like: Debt levels per capital and as a % of full market property values ; Economy - diversity depth growth, investments .... employment and tax base concentration and vulnerability to business cycles downturns; Financial operations- positive operating trends, reserve levels or in Detroit's case budget stabilization funds levels, revenue diversity and flexibility to raises revenues. Remember the bond rating are not a report card on a city. Rather they are an opinion on a municipalities ability to repay debt determined by the interaction of four rating factors: economy, management, debt and finances. Its a capitalist tool the support the investor driven bond market. There is special focus on revenue flows.
Bond ratings say nothing about employment and wealth inequity, nor is it a personal judgement on management, Archer vs. Coleman Young. The best management is that which provides the best environment for debt repayment. There is little room to make social commentary.
>>> Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu> 05/06/99 04:13PM >>>
At 02:49 PM 5/6/99 -0400, Charles wrote:
>But the personality analysis I give falls into the error the media wants
me to make. Coleman Young was not so much the problem as the overwhelmingly
Black population, which was the basis of his election and reelections,
carrying forth the spirit of activism and revolt from the 1967 rebellion etc.
>The Black majority was created not by a Black invasion , but by White
flight to the suburbs. The bourgeoisie were not comfortable with investing
in an overwhelmingly proletarian AND Black population, which Detroit is,
especially when it symbollically continued to represent its militancy and
Blackness and working class elan by repeatedly electing Young, a legendary
Black red, even when he had made many compromises.
WS: That's quite an interesting contrast with Baltimore which shares many similar features with Detroit (i.e. blockbusting, white flight, working class population). But my reading is that the current population of Baltimore (80% black) is not at all interested in politics, let alone radical - to the point that Schmoke (the current black mayor) can virtually ignore black concerns and pander exclusively to the interests of his cronies, gambling promoters and local robber barons (who are mostly white - but I think that the only color that matters to the mayor is green). Most bumper stickers you see in the city threaten you with assorted perils if you do not find Jesus, rather than call for a radical political action.
>
>Now all the big bourgeoisie are happy with current Mayor Archer, so
Detroit gets a good grade as a reward , and good press. We are "coming
back", according to them. Compuware is now going to locate a headquarters
downtown. GM just moved its headquarters from midcity to downtown ( the
significance being they didn't move it OUT of the city). Casinos are being
built. Land values are going up. Archer wants to abolish the city business
tax altogether.
WS: Well, but I think they must be using some seemingly objective criteria, not just "because we say so." There is clearly some urban revitalization going on, but what makes me wonder is how urban revitalization in Detroit or Baltimore compares to that in, say, NYC, Chicago or Boston? Any stats?
Wojtek